1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the slaughtering industry where slaughtered animals are cut along the median plane to provide a pair of half-carcasses, and the spinal column, also referred to as the vertebral column, is removed from the half-carcasses.
2. Background of the Invention
U.S. Pat. No. 8,915,773 discloses a method for separation of the spinal column from a carcass middle part. The method disclosed therein comprises the steps of determining a cutting path for a cutting device for the separation of the spinal column from the carcass middle part; separating the spinal column from the carcass middle part by causing a relative movement between the middle part and the cutting device and simultaneously causing the cutting device to engage the carcass middle. The method includes: optically scanning the middle part to provide a scan of an outer surface of the carcass middle part and identifying and locating the spinal canal in the spinal column on the basis of digital processing. The cutting path is subsequently to the scanning determined on the basis of the position of the spinal canal and the cutting is carried subsequent to the scanning and determination of the cutting path.
The method disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 8,915,773 requires that the spinal cord is optically detectable and the accuracy of the method therefore depends on the accuracy with which the carcass has been split along the median plane and reveals the spinal canal. Thus, if the carcass is not split perfectly along the median plane, e.g. if the cut is laterally offset, the spinal canal may not be detectable in an optical scan of the half-carcass. When this occurs, the method disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 8,915,773 fails to provide cutting path and removal of the spinal column is to be removed by other means such as manually resulting in increased labour cost. In addition, the split may typically be offset typically up till 10 mm from a perfect split and/or it may further be angled relatively the median plane. Thus, even if the spinal column is detectable, the use of the position of the spinal column may lead to a relative high offset of the cutting plane may be offset too much or too little resulting in that either too much meat or too little bone is removed.
Hence, an improved method for removing the spinal column would be advantageous, and in particular a more efficient and/or reliable method for removing the spinal column would be advantageous.